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M*tl. RICHARDS'S DISCOURSE 



ON 



MR. WEBSTER. 



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DISCOURSE, 



OCCASIONED BY THE DEATH OF 



DANIEL WEBSTER, 



DELIVERED IN 



CENTRAL CHURCH, BOSTON, 



OCTOBER 31, 1852, 



BT 



GEORGE RICHARDS 



o ..■--• 



BOSTON: 

PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 42 CONGRESS ST. 

1852. 






Boston, November 10, 1852. 

Rev. and Deae Sir, 

"SN'c desire that your Discourse, on the occasion of the lamented 
death of Mr. "Webster, repeated on the last Sabbath, may be printed for 
the use of the members of your Congregation, and for circulation among 
oiu- friends. "We therefore respcctftdly request that you -w ill furnish us a 
copy of the same for this purpose. 

We are, dear Sir, your friends and servants, 

Alpheus Hardy. 
Fkederick Sweetser. 
Albert Little. 
Leopold Herman. 
James C. Converse. 
J. H. "Ward. 
H. L. Hazelton. 
Cuarles Calhoun. 
SiL-vs P. Meiuam. 
J. W. "Warren, Jr. 



J 



Boston, December 21, 1852. 

Gentlemen, 

I comply w-ith your request for a copy of my Discourse for the press. 

"Written, as you know, on the spur of the moment, it can claim no place 
. fiipong foimal and ■ Iflboied eulogies. As a sincere tribute of respect for a 
'.• jjroai miflO, and character, and lil'c, it is at your disposal. 

"','^ery respectfully, your friend, 

Geo. Richards. 



DISCOURSE. 



HEBREWS VII. 4. 

CONSIDER HOW GREAT THIS 3IAN WAS. 

This is a Religious service, — so the Day and the 
Place admonish us. It is almost a Funereal service. 
We arc here to roll back the stone from the door of 
the sepulchre, to uncover the face of the dead, to 
feel the stillness, the gloom, the chill of the narrow 
house, to gather lessons that may nerve us for our 
toils, and gird us for our rest. Assembled, as about 
the re-opened grave, let one mind animate us, one 
feeling of fraternity, one sense of accountability, 
one willingness to learn and to be taught, one desire 
and purpose to bear hence fitter preparation for our 
duties and our destinies. 

" God," — said the wise and eloquent preacher, as 
he stood over the coffin of Louis XIV., — " God 



only is great." Met to speak and learn of one, 
" every inch a king," it is well to recall the senti- 
ment — God only is great. " He sitteth upon the 
circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are 
as grasshoppers." " He bringeth the princes to 
nothing." " The stars are not pure in his sight ; 
how much less man that is a worm, and the son of 
man that is a worm." 

Whenever God addresses us, we are to listen. 
The voice of his Providence may be as persuasive 
and as instructive as the voice of his Word. Events 
occurring under our eye, arresting our notice, filling 
the public mind, stirring the public heart, — events 
weighty with solemn admonition, the memory of 
which goes with us, stays with us, pursues us here, 
preoccupies our thoughts, may well afford its theme 
to the pulpit, pass in serious review, be looked at in 
the light which this Book sheds on every thing tem- 
poral and every thing eternal. Let us, then, con- 
sider how great this man was. 

This man. What man ? Need I name him ! 
He was born on our northern frontiiM". The log 
cabin, — " raised amid the snow-drifts of New 
Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the 
smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled 
over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence 



of a white man's habitation between it and the set- 
tlements on the rivers of Canada," — had been sup- 
planted indeed by a frame house ; yet mucli of the 
rugged sternness, the ahiiost Alpine grandeur of the 
scenery, remained. 

There the boy hardened into the man. We can 
see him, wending his way, two and a half and three 
miles, in mid-winter, to the district school ; thence, 
its slender aids exhausted, on horseback, with his 
father, to the Academy ; thence to the minister's, 
at Boscawen ; thence to Dartmouth College. 

We see him a student of the law, — eking out 
the narrow means of himself and elder brother, by 
school teaching. We see him riding the circuits, 
mingling in the war of giants, — the Masons, Sulli- 
vans, Dexters, Storys of his day. We see him a 
Representative in Congress, first from the State of 
his birth, then from the State of his adoption ; a 
Member of the Convention that revised the Consti- 
tution of our Commonwealth ; a Senator in Con- 
gress ; Secretary of State of the United States ; a 
private Citizen; Senator; Secretary; — till the more 
than seventy years' drama closes, and the curtain 
falls. How great this man was. 

This Man : a description of him in a word. 
Here was no Scholar versed in sonKj single branch, 



— no Genius endowed with some single gift, — no 
mere Actor on the |)ul)lic stage, — no mere Thinker 
in secluded privacy ; — a Man, a finished specimen 
of his race, a concentration of the qualities and 
properties that make up humanity. 

How GREAT this man was. 

Phijsicalbj he was great. To see him was to 
notice him, to rememher him, to look after him 
when he had passed, to point him out to others, to 
make his face and form, his step and tone, thence- 
forth the models by which greatness must be tested. 
Recall him, as you have seen and heard him. 

"With grave 
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed 
A piUar of state ; deep on his front engraven 
Deliberation sat, and public care. 

. . . Sage he stood 
W^ith Atlantean shoulders fit to bear 
The weight of mightiest monarchies ; his look 
Drew audience and attention still as night 
Or summer's noontide air." 

hitcllcciunlhj he was great. A great Lawyer, — 
ill the learninf^: and the practice of his ])rofession, 
before the court, before the Jury. A great States- 
man, — as a legislator, as a diplomatist, leaving his 
mark on the j)oIicy of his own country, and of 



foreign states. A great Orator, — before the few, 
before the many, on topics political, literary, social, 
religious. A great Writer, — clear, simple, pointed, 
condensed, the tightened cords of his sentences hold- 
ing fost the struggling thoughts. A great Farmer, 
Sportsman, Angler. He could not help it ; his 
greatness pursued him, like his shadow ; where he 
went, it went. 

No faculty in particular can be said to have dis- 
tinguished him. None was unduly cultivated, or 
unduly exercised. They were a family of Titans, 
and worked and played together. 

Materials huge, disjointed, discordant, strown 
here and there, piled in cumbrous and disorderly 
confusion, he could sort, classify, reduce to method, 
build into an edifice of Doric grandeur and sim- 
plicity. On a sudden, that edifice was illuminated ; 
it blazed with the lights of fancy, wit scintillated 
alone: its walls, humor shed a mellow radiance, 
imasination shared the throne with reason. Next, 
passion was busy at her furnaces, the chill air grew 
tempered, a genial warmth diffused itself, the dull 
embers {flowed in the fierce heat. His work com- 

a 

pleted, the enchanter laid down his wand, seemingly 
unconscious that w hat was so easy to himself, was 
impossible to others. 



8 

And how multiplied these monuments. One 
looms above the Rock of Plymouth, lighting the 
path-way of the Pilgrim. One garners the ashes 
of the Presidents, their imperishable sarcophagus. 
Two siumount yonder battle-ground, overtopping 
the granite obelisk. They rise round the tribunals 
of the law, its munition of rocks. Statelier than 
the relics of Thebes, they line the avenues and 
guard the entrances to the temples of freedom and 
religion. 

The precise rank among intellectual men which 
this man will hold, it is not for any one age or 
nation to determine. His own countrvmen must 
sit in judgment on his fame, measuring him with 
his contemporaries and predecessors. Men of other 
lands, not unemulous of rivalry, must weigh him 
against their sages. Posterity, less jealous, more 
impartial, must review the testimony and revise the 
verdict. Age will succeed age, each denying the 
infallibility of the preceding, and deciding for itself. 
Meantime, the number and the vouchers of the can- 
didates will be diminishing. Time, with sieve and 
crucible, will be sifting the motley sands, and drain- 
ing the yellow gold. The dull waters of oblivion, 
chafing, fretting, undermining, overturnins:, will be 
leaving fewer and ever fewer survivors, in the wide 



solitude. The lot of the fame we are considerins: 
drops into that urn. 

Murallij this man was great. In the larger sense 
of the word moral, — Voluntary. He was great in 
the exercise of choice, as well as great in the exer- 
cise of intelligence. His will was on a par with 
his other faculties, and, as became it, regulated 
them. The oflice was no sinecure. Think of an 
intellect, confident of its resources, that knew what 
it could do, and could do anything. Think of an 
imagination of prodigal endowment, that could load 
down ideas with images, till they reeled under them. 
Think of passions, not quick to move, but, once 
roused, stronger than Samson, in his locks, pulling 
down column and temple on his enemies. 

What was to hold these forces in subjection, 
keep each to the path prescribed to it, allot each 
its share of responsibility — no more, no less ? The 
will, if anything. The will did it. Like Phaethon, 
it drove the chariot of the sun ; unlike him, held car 
and coursers to their orbit. 

There is a higher sense of the word moral, — 
Upright, conformed to duty. In this sense, moral- 
ity is a science and a life ; it may be taught, and 
it may be practiced. This man taught it. He 
grasped its princij)les as he grasped all principles, 



10 

and illustrated them, and enforced them. His 
works are a store-house of sound and solid ethics. 
It would be hard to find in any writings, — the 
Bible excluded, — loftier, purer, more just, more 
discriminating rules for our conduct, as men, as 
citizens, as members of one vast confederacy of 
States, and one vaster confederacy of Nations, than 
are to be found distributed through the essays, 
addresses, arguments, orations, letters, which con- 
stitute his legacy to his country and mankind. 

Ethics may be taught, and they may be practiced. 
Did he practice them ? Was he as great in the 
discharge of duty as in the inculcation of it ? 
If he was, he was great indeed. Few of us, 
probably, had that personal and intimate acquaint- 
ance with the man, with his private walks, and his 
private manners, that would justify us either in 
affirming or denying. To err is human. Com- 
manding talent and position bring sore temptations. 
They expose, too, peculiarly to the vcnomed arrows 
of detraction. It is better to pray for the great 
than to defame them. They need, like the rest 
of us, the palliating charity of their fellows, and the 
mercy of their God. " Who art thou that judgest 
another man's servant ' to his own master he stand- 
eth or falleth." 



11 

There is yet a higher sense of the word moral, — 
Religious. Was this man a religious man ? Here, 
as before, my appeal is to the record, — to what I 
know, not what I do not. The answer is the same. 
As he stands before his age and country, and will 
stand before posterity, — in his writings and trans- 
mitted sayings, — he was profoundly religious. That 
fact cannot be exorcised from his pages. What 
wonder? His range was too comprehensive, too 
far-sighted, to stop short w^ith time. The material- 
ism that rests contented with the present, that 
abjures serious inquiry, that claims kindred with the 
clod and with the worm, that regards Deity as a 
phantom, piety as superstition, death as an eternal 
sleep, found no foothold in his manly and thoughtful 
spirit. He could not believe it, if he would ; and 
he would not, if he could. He was himself its suffi- 
cient refutation. He rot under the sod ! His light 
go out in darkness ! Never. His mighty instincts 
drew him to God. His deep want implored a Reve- 
lation. Who less than Apostles and Prophets could 
instruct him ? Away with your philosophy ! He 
knew that already. His lead had sounded it, and 
struck bottom, and come back unsatisfied. Only 
not inspired, he only needed inspiration. If God 
would speak to him, he would listen, — but man I 



12 

God did speak to him. He was a diligent reader 
and an ardent admirer of the Scriptures. " Once 
every year," he said, '• I go through witii them." 
He would recite Job and Isaiah to lawyers and 
statesmen, till, as one said, they knew that the 
writers were inspired, or he was. Had he done no 
more than to lend his sanction to the Bible ; in an 
age when infidelity, never more brazen-faced in its 
assumptions, insinuates itself into school and univer- 
sity, depraves the press, corrupts private and public 
morals, claims almost exclusive title to learning and 
philosophy, — had he but rebuked its arrogance, put 
his heel on its pretensions, silenced its impudence, 
borne his willing witness to a faith whose vows he 
had assumed, whose solemn ordinances he statedly 
frequented, whose institutions he assisted to main- 
tain, the i)older features of whose creed he helped 
to illustrate and substantiate, he would not have 
liv(;d in vain. 

How great this man avas. Plaintive and sad th(> 
cadence, — was. A week ago, to-day, the Sab- 
bath sun not yet tinging the eastern wave, dark- 
ness on land and sea, — the last act of the great 
drama closed. For a year there had been premo- 
nitions of decay. Accident had accelerated its pro- 
gress. It was rumored and gained credence that 



13 

his health was seriously impaired ; tliat friends and 
physicians grew solicitous ; that the symptoms were 
hourly aggravating ; that the worst was feared ; 
that life was despaired of. 

Then the great heart of society stood still. Then 
men spoke in whispers, and eyed anxiously each 
other, and waited for evil tidings, and hoped, and 
wept, and prayed, till that signal gun ! — and a 
widowed Nation was in weeds. 

The close was characteristic of the man. No 
bustle. No disorder. Always the right thing in 
the right place. The public business was disposed 
of ; directions given about the ftirms ; bequests 
made to individuals ; farewells addressed to friends. 
The will is executed : — " I thank God for strength 
to perform a sensible act." 

He prays, in tones at first low and indistinct, but 
risinir, swellinir, till every svllable becomes audible, 
— ending, " Almighty God, receive me to thyself, 
for Jesus Christ's sake." He makes formal profes- 
sion of his faith. He thinks aloud, " What would 
be the condition of any of us, without the hope of 
immortality ? What sure basis for that hope is 
there but the Gospel ? " 

" Poetry, poetry," he murmurs ; " Gray, Gray." 
Extracts from the Elegy are repeated. Is he think- 



14 

ing of the graves, the old Puritan graves, amid 
which his dust is to be laid ? 

" Beneath those rugged ehns, that 3'ew tree's shade, 
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering Iicap, 
Each in his narrow cell forever laid, 

Tlie rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." 

Or is he thinking of his own narrow house, 
and the thronging nuiltitudes, and the uttered 
praise ? 

" Can storied urn, or animated bust, 

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath ? 
Can Honor's voice provoke tlie silent dust, 

Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of Death ? " 

The process of djing is inquired into, his mind 
dwells on it, investigates it, would know the stages 
and gradations. To divert his thoughts, the Scrip- 
ture is repeated, " Though I walk through the val- 
ley," &c. " The fact," says he ; " the fact, that 
is what I want," — the physiological fact he was 
inquiring into ; then, aftiT a pause, reverting to the 
text, " Thy rod— thy staff." " I shall be to-night," 
says he, " in life, and joy, and blessedness." The 
night came and went, and then the words, })ro- 
phetic of two immortalities, " ] still live." 



15 

He was buried on Friday. It was a private 
funeral, — so he had directed. It well became him. 
The Secretary of State had resigned ; the candi- 
date for the Presidency had withdrawn ; the land- 
holder had relinquished his estates ; he brought 
nothing into this world, it was certain he could 
carry nothing out. A private funeral. The silver 
poplar he had planted spread its arms above his 
bier. Old neighbors and townsmen held up the 
trailing pall. The lowing herds watched as he rode 
by. A private funeral. Yet his Country was there. 
That village bell waked the echoes of a Continent. 
The tramp of the slow procession stilled the pulses 
of the world. 

" He was a man, take him for all in all, 
We shall not look upon his like again." 

Consider how great this man was. Why con- 
sider ? That we may be Grateful. Such a Mind 
is a public benefaction. As the mere object of 
study and contemplation, it is as well worth our 
notice, better worth our notice, than the mountain, 
the lake, the cataract which we travel leagues to 
visit. It gives us a truer conception of the Inlinite, 
— Himself a mind,— the author of this mind, and 
of all minds, who gave it, and has recalled it. It 



16 

conduces to self-knowledge, affording the magni- 
fied, colossal image of ourselves. These all should 
awaken gratitude. 

Then, again, the life we are considering was 
a well-spring of Public Benefits. It was spent 
largely in public service, spent in positions of 
authority and trust, in Cabinets, and Councils, 
and Halls of Legislation. The value of those ser- 
vices, as a whole, — not this page, nor that page, 
— but as a whole, will hardly be questioned. Con- 
stantly adding to the dignity, the security, the pros- 
perity of his country, he seemed, at times, its 
saviour. He rewelded the loosening links of the 
Confederacy. He cemented the cracked and reft 
foundations. Interests local and sectional avoided 
him. A mind wide enough for empires, it was 
less his virtue than his necessity, that he em- 
braced the whole. Nor did he stop with country. 
He had a voice for Greece ; tones of sympathy 
for the South American Republics ; a kindly word 
for Hungary. The myrmidons of Des[)otism shook 
at his trumpet-blast. His pen of iron wrote their 
doom along the wall. Land and sea, to-day, spread 
the stiller and serener round that sleeper ; for the 
silken bands of his Treaties bind the jieace of the 
World. 



17 

Let us consider, too, to be Humble. We need 
adversity. Its thorny coronet befits us. Rarely 
are blessings, public or private, prized, till they are 
lost. Wrenched from us, we learn their value. Our 
rulers should be oftener in our thoughts, oftener on 
our hearts. We should pray more for them, in the 
closet, at the fireside, amid our children, in our 
sanctuaries ; ])ray that they may be good as well 
as great ; that ambition may not lure them from 
the narrow way, nor adulation spoil with self- 
conceit ; pray that, giddy with earthly elevation, 
they lose not the durable distinction and the imper- 
ishable crown. The past is unalterable, but not 
the future. The proof of penitence is reformation. 
Be the shroud and the pall for the dead, sackcloth 
and ashes for the living. 

Let us consider, to be Thoughtful, That tomb 
is fruitful of sussestions. To think that its inmate 

CIO 

is hid from us, forever ; that we shall no more 
encounter him in the busy street, nor along the 
winding shore ; read no more the chronicle of his 
departure and return, his health and sickness, his 
victory and defeat. Cities no more will keep holi- 
day, to grace his triumph, nor village pour out its 
population, sire and son, matron and maid, to wel- 
come him. The ^reat cause will miss its advocate, 



18 

the law its luminous expounder, the constitution 
its defender, — all shrunk into that little grave. 
Weighty questions of diplomacy, that involve the 
war and peace of nations, that harass tin? public 
mind, and burden the public heart, must find other 
elucidation. lie has no more light to shed, nor 
policy to prescribe. " Put not your trust in princes." 
" Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his 
help." 

Then another thought, — our own mortality. We 
are here on our way to the grave. One event hap- 
peneth unto all. One barrier intercepts every pros- 
pect. The small and the great are there. The 
communism of tlie dust — how absolute ! No ques- 
tions of precedence, no disputes for place, no fa\A n- 
ing obsequiousness, no domineering pride, across 
that threshold. A tomb, the Mecca of thronging 
pilgrims, or a stoneless mound, — it is all the same. 
Monument and euloiry, dirge and requiem, are for 
the living, never for the dead. 

Another thought, — the preparation for eternity. 
What is it ? I point vou, for an answer, not to the 
pulpit, but to the press. Read the religious and 
the irreligious Journals, the literary and the political. 
What say they ? What fits for the dying hour, 
and the scenes beyond ? Not fame nor 2;reatness. 



19 

Penitence toward God, faith in our Lord Jesus 
Christ. For these, men wait ahout the portals, and 
bend over tlie pillow, and count the ebbing pulses, 
and list to the faltering breath. These, uttered, are 
remembered, are recorded, are stamped on the 
printed page, are dropped in the listening ear ; 
hearts beat with invigorated hope, eyes stream with 
grateful joy. The preparation for eternity, — a 
labor for a life, not for its hurrying close ; the 
silver cord loosing, the golden bowl breaking, the 
pitcher breaking at the fountain, the wheel break- 
ing at the cistern, the dust returning to the earth 
as it was, the spirit to God who gave it. 

Another thought, — our destined greatness. We 
see what is before us. That quick opening, ([uick 
shutting gate, that lets out, moment by moment, 
other and yet other travelers, lets in glimpses and 
vistas of the undiscovered country. The intellect, 
whose great range and compass we admired, not 
emulated, we are to rival, to surpass, to look back 
on, to lose sight of, at some stage in that long pro- 
iiression. What will there not be time for, in eter- 
nity ? His greatness, and more, our own. This it 
is, to be born, to die, to strike into a path that hath 
no end. 

One other thought, — that eternity so near us. 






20 

The way seems darkened by its shadows. We feel 
the breath of the winds that sweep over its shore- 
less waters. ' I still live,' said he — and vanished 
amid the thronging phantoms. 

We bore his ashes to the grave, — he had deserted 
them. They had been rifled of their pride. The 
regal majesty had departed. It was dust to dust. 
But up, through that open sepulchre, rolled back 
on us the accents that almost chided our solemn 
obsequies, — 

I STILL LIVE. 



LBJL '05 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




